Hermanos (Relato)
"Marcus!" she cried, her voice shrill with terror. "There's someone climbing up the wall!" He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve and ran over to the window. Last night, when the fireball had torn through the wall, soldiers had rushed to erect a hasty barricade of planks over the blackened gap. They'd told the two children to leave, to seek refuge in one of the temples, then they'd been summoned away to attend to another potential weak spot in the city wall. But Marcus and his sister Andrea had nowhere else to go. Their parents were killed when the shrine they were praying in collapsed and buried the entire congregation. So much for religion, they weren't going to seek refuge there. All they possesed, mostly memories, now that Praag was half in ruins and there was little food and water left to anyone, was here in this house. They ventured outside only when they had to, searching for provisions. Since the bottom floor had been blocked in by a fallen roof, the building had been largely ignored by looters. And in any case, what good were jewels or furs to men dying from starvation or thirst? He put his ear to the barricade and listened. Andrea had keener hearing than he, but if he concentrated hard, he could hear something. A relentess scratching, creaking noise. A noise coming ever closer. "Quick, we've got to go. Now, Andrea". He grabbed her roughly by the arm and they fled through the door, down the corridor. As they reached the top of the stairs there was a sudden crash of splintering wood from the room behind. Startled, Marcus stumbled in the darkness and tumbled down the steps. "Marcus! Where are you?" yelled Andrea, groping for her brother. Her hands finally collided with the hand-rail and she clambered sobbing down the stairs. Aboye her, cold, heavy footsteps echoed across the wooden floorboards. When she reached the bottom, she called out for Marcus, but there was no answer. When her questing foot struck his still body, she knelt down and felt for a pulse. She think he was dead, but she couldn't rouse him. As the heavy-footed intruder started down the steps, she desperatcly slapped and shook her brother, to no avail. She wanted to run away, to hide, but she couldn't Ieave her brother. They were too close, and he was her eyes. Her chest clenched with fear, she climbed to her feet and stood defensively before Marcus' prone form. She heard the armed feet descending the stairs, cross the landing, and stop in front of her. Nothing happened. Andrea's legs were trembling with terror. If you're going to kill me, she pleaded silently, please make it quick. Why didn't it speak? Finally, unable to endure the tension any longer, she reached out. Her hand met armour, a breastplate, intricately chased with swirling designs. Why would he let such fine armour become so rusty, she asked herself. The thing stood so still it could have been a statue, she could sense no heart beat, no breathing - no life. Suddenly, an ice-cold hand grasped her wrist, and she let out a yelp of terror. Garbled, glottal sounds came from her captor's throat. Andrea guessed it was trying to communicate with her, but she couldn't understand what it was trying to say. She tried to twist away, but it held her in a vice-like grip. With her free hand, she tore at its cold fingers, and retched as gobbets of flesh came away in her grasp. lcy realisation hit her as she struggled frantically to escape. It's dead! It can't speak because it's dead! Hysterical tears rolled down her cheeks, she was laughing and crying at the same time. A dead man who can't talk and a blind girl who can't see. what a hilarious joke. She was still laughing on the landing when the Undead Champion smashed its way out through the rubble of the ground floor onto the streets of Praag. Fuente * Suplemento Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (3ª Edición). Categoría:Relato Kislev Categoría:Pendiente de traducir